Every German officer
has had this manual in his hands since the days of peace. It comprised
his rules of warfare. It was a part of his war equipment, the same as
his field glasses and his staff-officer's card. And here is what he
reads on the very first page:
War carried on energetically can not be directed against the
inhabitants and fortified places of the hostile state alone;
it will endeavor, it ought to endeavor to _destroy equally
all the enemy's intellectual and material resources_.
Humanitarian considerations, that is, consideration for the
persons of individuals and for the sake of propriety, can
have no recognition unless the end and nature of the war
allow it.
And, a little farther on, he reads there:
Profound study of the history of war will make the officer
guard against exaggerated humanitarian concessions, will
teach him that war can not take place without certain
harshness, _that true humanity consists in proceeding
without tenderness_.
Farther along in that book, he reads:
All the methods invented by the technic of modern warfare,
the most perfected as well as the most dangerous, _those
which kill the greatest number at once, are permitted_.
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